Joseph Beuys: WORK LINES 1 May — 4 September 2016 Museum Kurhaus Kleve — Ewald Mataré-Collection Exhibition JOSEPH BEUYS — WORK LINES The Museum Kurhaus Kleve guards a precious trea- sure that has not yet been properly brought to light. It houses the original studio of Joseph Beuys (1921—1986) that he occupied from 1957 to 1964 in the oldest part of the building of today’s museum, the spa’s house, that was then vacant. Beuys worked there in the period that is regarded artistically as the hinge between his earlier work strongly influenced by his teacher, Ewald Mataré (1887—1965), and his pioneering creative work of the 1960s and 1970s. After Beuys left the studio due to his appointment at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, the rooms were used for other purposes, the building being renovated in the 1980s. When the Museum Kur- haus Kleve opened its doors in 1997, the archive of the Town of Cleves was kept in this part of the old spa house. When the archive was moved to another location in 2006, the opportunity had arisen for the museum to restore the original rooms of the artist. The reconstitution succeeded through a tedious process and support from various quarters during the years from 2008 to 2012. Since September 2012 the reconstructed studio of Joseph Beuys in the Museum Kurhaus Kleve is once again accessible to the public. Since then there has not been any opportunity to appropri- ately appraise this significant workplace. The year 2016 is the 95th birthday of Joseph Beuys and the 30th anniversary of his death. The Museum Kurhaus Kleve is taking this double anni- versary as an occasion to realize the exhibition, “Joseph Beuys — Work Lines”, from 1 May to 4 Sep- tember 2016 in which important groups of works will be presented around the original rooms that were either made there or have their origins there. Symptomatic lines of work will be pursued that are closely associated with the Cleves envi- ronment of those years, ranging from the begin- nings to the late work. Joseph Beuys’ studio at the spa house in Cleves, 1959 (photo: Fritz Getlinger) Joseph Beuys’ studio at the spa house in Cleves, (photo: 2014 Markus van Offern) 3 BÜDERICH MONUMENT The “Büderich Monument” is Joseph Beuys’ most monu- mental work that was made in his studio at the Cleves spa house. It has a singular position within his oeuvre. On the occasion of the exhibition, “Joseph Beuys — Work Lines”, for the first time in more than fifty years, all three parts of this work will return to the place of their making. It will be the only time that a presentation will be pos- sible in Cleves because the loan of this normally permanently installed monument has been made pos- sible in 2016 only due to comprehensive conserva- tion and cleaning measures. The “Büderich Monument” is the only monu- ment realized by Joseph Beuys in the public domain during his lifetime. Beuys installed it in a Romanesque church tower in Büderich, a suburb of Meerbusch, not far from the studio of Ewald Mataré, his professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. It consists of an oaken gate with two leaves into which Beuys has carved, as a commemoration for the fallen, the names of the 222 Büderich war-dead as well as an oaken cross which, as a counter-pole to the gate, is a symbol of resurrection and salva- (right) of the “Büderich Monument”, 1959 tion. In 1955 Joseph Beuys had submitted a draft design for the monument for the fallen of the two World Wars in response to a public advertisement. In May 1957 he was awarded the commission, at a time when he was convalescing from a personal cri- sis at the farm of the brothers van der Grinten. To be able to realize work on the monument, he (left) and the gate rented rooms in the vacant spa house. A bundle of draft drawings in the possession of the Museum Moyland Castle illustrates Beuys’ plans. Historical photographs by Willy Maywald (1907—1985) and Fritz Getlinger (1911—1998) document the phase of making at the old spa house, which also marks a new beginning in Beuys’ creative work. In 1959 the monument was consecrated in the old church tower in Büderich. Beuys’ installation on site is shown by the photographs taken by Werner Hannappel (born 1949 in Essen). The studio of Joseph Beuys in the Cleves spa house with the cross (both photos: Willy Maywald) 5 ANACHARSIS CLOOTS and the TRAM STOP In his oeuvre Joseph Beuys worked through many experiences and insights from his younger years in Cleves. Already early on he was fascinated by the historical figure of the baron, Jean Baptiste Cloots, who was born in 1755 at Gnadenthal Castle, not far from the Museum Kurhaus Kleve, and who later called himself “Anacharsis Cloots” (see also page 36f). Cloots went to Paris in the period of the French Revolution and made a name for himself there as “Orateur du Genre Humain” (orator of the human race). Beuys felt him to be a revolutionary brother in spirit and repeatedly made reference to him in his work, especially to his heroic end in 1794 under the guillotine. In 1972, in the artist’s performance “Anacharsis Cloots” in Rome, Beuys recited from a biography of Cloots and later declared Baron Cloots to be his alter ego by assuming the name, “Josephanacharsis Clootsbeuys”. Cloots’ decapitated head is also part of one of Joseph Beuys’ most famous installations, the so-called “Tram Stop”, that today is kept at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. It will be on show on the occasion of the exhibition, “Joseph Beuys — Work Lines”, at the Museum Kurhaus Kleve. Beuys made the “Tram Stop” for the 1976 Venice Biennale. It was inspired by the tro- phy-monument, “At the Iron Man” (properly speak- ing, the “Cupid Column”) in Cleves (see also page 26f), that Beuys regularly passed by in the tram as a child. The trophy column that was made in the 17th century for the Cleves governor, John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1604—1679), from relics of the Thirty Years’ War fascinated Beuys already as a child with its archaic appearance. Decades later, the photographs by Fritz Getlinger (1911 — 1998) and Herbert Schwöbel were taken that today are important historical docu- ments making it apparent to the viewer how pre- cisely and carefully Beuys prepared and executed the casting in Cleves and the mounting in Venice. The one-off work of the head underlying this installation is in possession of the Museum Kur- haus Kleve, on loan from the Kunstsammlung Nor- drhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, and will be one of the central pieces of the exhibition. Joseph Beuys, “Iron Man”, 1961 (1976), plaster cast from modelled clay, on loan from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf Joseph Beuys, details of the “Tram Stop” with the head of the “Iron Man”, Venice (photo: 1976 Herbert Schwöbel) JJoseph Beuys, “Tram Stop”, Venice (photo: 1976 Herbert Schwöbel) 7 EARLIER WORK-COMPLEX On loan from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen in Düsseldorf In 2012 at the inauguration of the reconstructed studio of Joseph Beuys in the Cleves spa house, the artist’s widow, Eva Beuys, as well as his chil- dren, Wenzel and Jessyka Beuys gave the Museum Kurhaus Kleve a comprehensive complex of works by Beuys on temporary loan. This work-complex, com- prising more than twenty works, is of great sig- nificance for the Museum Kurhaus Kleve because, apart from individual exceptions, it was made in the years from 1947 to 1961, the relevant ones for the Cleves museum. The majority of the works thus stems from a period when Beuys at first was a stu- dent of Ewald Mataré and others at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (1946—1954) and then, from 1957 on at the Cleves spa house studio, was active as a free- lance artist, until finally he accepted a position as professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1961. In this period Beuys laid the foundations for his later oeuvre. The group of works illustrates magnifi- cently how Beuys has moved from conventional sub- jects such as the cross, the Pietà and the female nude to his own iconography and individual artis- tic language of forms such as the motifs of the throwing cross, lamps, bath-tubs or Justitia. The work-group has particular significance in forming a self-contained complex from a decisive phase of artistic work. It provides insights into the art- ist’s world of ideas and likewise, through the materiality of the plaster and its clearly visible traces of being worked upon, illuminates Beuys’ work processes and thus his workshop. From the outset the Museum Kurhaus Kleve had the express desire to acquire this work-group for its collection. The purchase finally succeeded in the period from 2013 to 2015 with the assistance of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia that has now officially acquired the work-complex for the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, whence the Museum Kurhaus Kleve has obtained it on permanent loan. Encouraged by the founding director of the Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Guido de Werd, the purchase was supplemented by Beuys’ fam- ily through a gift of numerous studio utensils that enable a unique experience in Cleves of this singular workshop-character around the original rooms of the artist. On the occasion of the exhi- bition, “Joseph Beuys — Work Lines”, the work- complex is being presented in a new, generous way. Joseph Beuys, “Sunrise — Western Sign SAFG”, 1953, plaster cast from modelled clay Joseph Beuys, “Pietà”, 1949-1950, relief, first plastic representation of the “Pietà”, plaster cast Joseph Beuys, “Great Saturn”, 1958, plaster (from: “Mountain King (Tunnel) 2 Planets”, 1958-1961) all three on loan from9 the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf 4 BOOKS FROM: PROJECT WESTERN MAN “4 Books From: Project Western Man” will be on show at the exhibition, “Joseph Beuys — Work Lines”, at the Museum Kurhaus Kleve, four sketch-books by Joseph Beuys providing immediate insight into his artistic work over a period of seven years, which have been preserved as a group of works.